Seems reasonable that the province provide Airdrie with a fully equipped hospital; infrastructure and capability is one thing.

But what about qualified nurses and doctors?

Does the province have the human resources to staff a full-service hospital in Airdrie?

After reviewing some of the articles published about the problems at Airdrie I note that there was one death and two near misses:

1) Michelle Bates’ son died

http://globalnews.ca/news/1...

2) A commenter for the story above--Trina Desrosiers-- says she had a near miss birthing adverse event:

http://globalnews.ca/news/1...

Trina Desrosiers ·

Calgary, Alberta

As a mother who delivered my own baby girl in the passenger seat of our truck on the way back to PLC from Airdrie after being sent home (I even informed him home was in airdrie) because the beds were full and I was just to 'come back when I was closer', I agree this is more than just a desire for airdrie it is a necessity. I did everything a person is 'supposed to', I went in when I thought it was time, I listened to my drs advice, It took be about 35 minutes (just enough time to get home) to realize that dr was dead wrong, and I had just travelled miles away from what I now desperately needed. I debated my options, attempt a home delivery? Call an ambulance and wait that possibly critical 5 minutes it would hopefully take them to get there or get back in the truck and get my husband to drive like hell and get to the hospital as soon as our options would allow. That was the scariest moment, knowing whatever decision I made that moment could change the entire outcome of my story. I was very fortunate and held off as long as possible until I caught my healthy baby girl in my arms on 36th ave and held her about 5 minutes till we were assisted at the emergency doors of PLC. But I am very very lucky, and 24 hour care in airdrie could be the difference between life and death for another less fortunate woman in my position.

3) A toddler who is very sick does not get appropriate care- a second adverse event:

http://www.airdriecityview....

Kristina McGuire took her son Sam, 2, to the facility on Feb. 17 after he spiked a dangerously high fever. She said she initially called Sam’s cardiology nurse at the Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH), who advised her to bring him in for monitoring. However, not long after getting Sam into her vehicle, McGuire said he became extremely lethargic and was turning blue. At that point, she decided to divert to AUCC.

“I assumed they’d be able to help him,” she said. “They were scrambling and didn’t know what to do. I’m a nurse. I’ve been in this situation on both sides of the bed and (what happened) is not acceptable in any way, shape or form.”

4) A doctor advocating for a better way gets fired by AHS. No one talks about his termination citing privacy concerns. A petition is started to get him reinstated.

http://www.airdriecityview....

5) It also appears that the current facility is not able to handle even basic patient care as evidenced by the poor response of AUCC to Ms. McGuire’s son, Sam.

http://www.airdriecityview....

Kristina McGuire took her son Sam, 2, to the facility on Feb. 17 after he spiked a dangerously high fever. She said she initially called Sam’s cardiology nurse at the Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH), who advised her to bring him in for monitoring. However, not long after getting Sam into her vehicle, McGuire said he became extremely lethargic and was turning blue. At that point, she decided to divert to AUCC.

“I assumed they’d be able to help him,” she said. “They were scrambling and didn’t know what to do. I’m a nurse. I’ve been in this situation on both sides of the bed and (what happened) is not acceptable in any way, shape or form.”

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If AUCC is not able to provide basic medical care and doesn't even call for an ambulance for this child, then there are real problems for citizens in Airdrie that need to be addressed by Alberta Health. The minister of health should be responding to these alarming incidents with immediate action.
But based on the information provided by the Wildrose MLA, Sarah Hoffman is denying any sort of role in this mess:

https://www.facebook.com/An...

I had nothing to do with this situation. My department had nothing to do with this situation. Give me a break, Mr. Speaker. I’ve had enough. Sarah Hoffman.

Mr. Speaker, this isn’t the change that Albertans wanted. It’s just more of the same from a broken, out of touch government. Angela Pitt
**********************************************************************
What does all this information indicate to me?

There are many risks to citizens in the current state of medical services at Airdrie.

If the Airdrie Urgent Care Centre (AUCC) isn’t able to do basic responses to a toddler in respiratory distress, there will be more near misses and deaths. Who has liability for the deaths and adverse events? I believe it is Alberta Health. The department is fully responsible for their role in letting this situation persist.

Also, looking at the situation at Sundre Hospital where Sarah Hoffman has approved of the closure of public long term care beds, it appears that the direction from the minister is downsizing and degrading the level of care provided --as much as possible. So it doesn't seem likely that services will be extended or improved at AUCC.

The termination of the doctor is simply the way that AHS and Alberta Health normally function to ensure compliance by the medical staff.

They do this with patient advocates because bureaucratic and political expediency is more important than serving the public. To shut down any sort of productive attempt by citizens to ask for more than the poor services presently in place, AHS has taken the proactive step of terminating the doctor advocate for the community.

In my opinion, there will be no help from the government of Alberta with the health difficulties faced by families in Airdrie. They went ahead in Sundre without any sort of consultation with the community.

The long term objectives of the NDP government appear to be the same as that of the PC government. They will talk about the public interest and work to transfer continuing care to the private sector. They will talk about serving rural Albertans while they remove long term care beds and close sections of hospitals.

There will be continued losses of long term care beds in the public facilities, with transfer of citizens to privately owned supportive living facilities which do not provide the same level of care. Hospitals in rural areas will have to justify their existence and if cost constraints continue, there will be hospitals closed down.

A lot of this strategy appears to be solely based on the almighty dollar. It may be that any political party we hire will opt for the cheapest solution to problems in health care and continuing care delivery.

This troubling pattern of failing rural Albertans seems to be justified by Alberta Health (which has to approve of the changes made by AHS) as necessary budgetary decisions but this seems rather odd when we consider other decisions where money has been wasted without any concern by the NDP government-such as the more than a million dollars spent on advertisements for the climate change policy and the recent budget.

We also have the recent AHS news that 22 executive staff at AHS earned over 6 million dollars in 2015 ($6.621 million not including pension payments); some of these folks worked only part time hours.

http://www.albertahealthser...

ALBERTA HEALTH SERVICES

Annual Report

2014-15

In addition, the cost of Covenant Health topdogs is fairly elevated as well.

It seems money can be wasted on the elite in the health echelon, but not on ordinary citizens.

I suggest that folks in Airdrie need to join up with folks in other rural towns such as Sundre to magnify the impact of citizen dissent about these top down decisions by the government of Alberta.

Sarah Hoffman says that these decisions are not made by her or by Alberta Health. This isn’t true. Major AHS decisions need to be approved by the minister.

If you look at the summary of what is happening in Sundre, it will provide a forecast of what will happen in other parts of rural Alberta. It has already happened in Carmangay and Strathmore. More cuts are on the horizon.

http://www.friendsofmedicar...

Fast forward to March 8, 2016, when radio station rock104 reported Council Learns Of AHS Plans To Decommission 15 Sundre Hospital Long Term Care Beds.

“…There was a big announcement made by Alberta Health Services at the Monday, March 7th town council meeting.

AHS is going to decommission the 15 long term care beds at Sundre Hospital with the construction of the new Mountain View Seniors Housing facility in Sundre, according to Mayor Terry Leslie.

He adds there are 15 long term care beds in the Sundre Hospital and those residents will see a change in care.

Mayor Leslie says they are looking forward for ongoing community meetings to try and make the transition as easy as possible for patients affected and make sure resident care into the future is going to be the paramount focus.

He adds there is a contract to provide service not in long term care but in supportive living care at the new facility. So he calls it a change in the way care will be provided to seniors…”

Closure of the LTC beds was not an AHS decision. The LTC beds in the Sundre Hospital were registered as an Auxiliary Hospital. According to the OPERATION OF APPROVED HOSPITALS REGULATION Alberta Regulation 247/1990“Every hospital shall require prior approval of the Minister for a) any proposed major change or termination of an existing service provided by the hospital ...”

This was a decision made without any consultation with the community, and the community is very concerned about the loss of the LTC beds. AHS is now planning consultations to determine future use of the hospital space

The current NDP government is on record over a long period of time, in 2012, NDP MLA David Eggen compared the closure of the long term care facility in Carmangay to “domestic abuse” at a rally to protest Premier Redford’s decision. Also in 2012, Premier Rachel Notley commented that the Tory plan to limit LTC beds and shift to supportive living “aims to force sick seniors to shoulder a larger share of their health-related costs and live in facilities that may offer them an inadequate level of care.

"It's unfair, but it's also absolutely penny wise and pound foolish," Notley said.

"These patients will end up in much more expensive ER and acute care beds because they are the last resort."

The 2015 NDP Election Platform promised to create 2,000 public long term care beds [not to close public beds and shifting to private supportive living], and to “end the PCs’ costly experiments in privatization, and redirect the funds to publicly delivered services.

They are short-changing Alberta seniors by not creating enough long-term care beds and relying on expensive, for-profit delivery of inadequate assisted living and homecare.

Hansard records for Monday, March 14, 2016 and Tuesday March 15, 2016 show an interesting role reversal; the Wildrose protesting shutting down long-term care beds and laying off nurses in Sundre, and NDP Health Minister Hoffman explaining that they’re not really losing LTC beds, although there might be a slightly different level of care the number of beds is increasing from 15 to 40.

The Minister’s lines could have been written by any of the Tory Health Minsters in the last dozen years.